


Looking Back

by tuesnight



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Background Character Death, Canonical Character Death, Dubious Consent, Implied Mpreg, M/M, Necromancy, Non-Graphic Violence, Resurrection, Ritual Sex, Rituals, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-30 05:50:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20809604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuesnight/pseuds/tuesnight
Summary: Kylo knew what he wanted.  He knew what he needed.  He knew what he intended to bring back.  There had to be a way to marry the wight's raging immortality to the lover's sound, but fleeting mind.





	Looking Back

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fairleigh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fairleigh/gifts).

> I used a few of your requested tags along with your prompt. I hope you enjoy the result!
> 
> If necessary, please see the end notes for spoilery notes on what the consent issues and dubious consent tags mean and other content notes.

Kylo Ren was unstable. He knew that. Forever and always, his sense of self had been built on foundations that were eroding where they had not collapsed. The dark and the light fought a constant war that was tearing him apart. The effort to shore himself up, to rebuild, was unending.

Many had tried (or claimed) to help over the years. Mother used to come in and sit with him, to stroke his hair as he confessed that he was afraid to sleep—until she sent him away. Luke used to check on him each night when he was wracked with nightmares—until the day he woke Kylo with a lightsaber ignited and prepared to strike. Father thought one last ditch effort could finally help Kylo be free—and maybe it could, maybe Kylo could finally rest easy in the comfort of the darkness now he'd cut out another link to the searing light. Snoke had certainly done his part ensuring Kylo's fall.

So many people trying to help—all of them now gone from his life. Kylo needed a new anchor point, something to cling to in the storm. Someone who understood how it felt, who knew what it was to balance on the knife's edge and try desperately not to be cut.

There were warnings about what he intended to do, instructions buried between tales of woe, of wights that destroyed everyone involved in raising them. Done right, this ritual could grant a lover for an evening, but over and over again, the texts clearly repeated: it could easily go wrong.

Kylo's life had already gone wrong. How much worse could it be? And these examples were of people who'd been weak, who'd lacked clarity of purpose. Kylo knew what he wanted. He knew what he needed. He knew what he intended to bring back. There had to be a way to marry the wight's raging immortality to the lover's sound, but fleeting mind.

"Darth Vader," Kylo intoned, bleeding hands braced on the charred bone laid out on the altar before him. "The dark calls you forth."

—

The vision started with deceptive sweetness. Kylo sat with his mother on a wooden bench that was also a swing. They were in a garden. It was early spring. The air had bite to it, but it was dull, soon to grow toothless. Leia's arm was around his shoulder. She was smiling, as warm as the oncoming season.

A man stood in front of them. He was clothed in a brown robe. He was smiling, but it was sad, wistful. He said, "They grow up so fast, don't they?"

When Kylo glanced down, the hand on his shoulder was desiccated. Leia's hair was brittle. Her warm smile was a death's head grin. The air was colder now, winter taking back the promise of spring.

The man's smile faded. He looked at Kylo with pity. "You have no idea what you've done."

—

Kylo felt flesh forming under his palms. A slow, echoing beat began to sound.

—

Kylo stood in front of his uncle, lightsaber ignited. Red footprints led back to the carrier. Ahead, there was only his uncle on a field of white. The benefit of hindsight didn't humble Kylo, but it certainly made him feel like a fool.

Kylo extinguished his lightsaber. The man from before stood beside Kylo. He was dressed in black. He stared at Luke with beaming pride. When he looked at Kylo, it morphed into disappointment.

"You think you're the only one who's tried to bring someone back?" The man shook his head, sandy hair swaying in a breeze Kylo couldn't feel. "That's not how this ritual works. It's meant to save lineages, not lives."

He leaned forward, his forehead pressed to Kylo's, as Luke dissolved into light.

"If you're not careful, I'm going to tear you apart."

—

Hands gripped Kylo's shoulders with bruising force. In the moment before he came back to himself, they pulled him down onto the altar. They burned with cold.

Kylo flinched back from the deformed face that hovered over him. He got a hand between them, but he was weak from the ritual. There was no pushing back, no getting away, not without calling on powers that would destroy it—and his chance of binding the soul with it. Though the creature holding him was half-formed—legs still growing tibias, nose gaining cartilage, skin creeping out over muscle across its chest—it was supernaturally strong.

The texts had warned him what would happen if he left the ritual half finished: this in-between creature wanted to destroy him, to consume his life force and let that carry it on to the next person it met, and the next, and the next, until it had killed everyone or was killed in turn. Kylo had thought he'd understood. He'd thought there was a way to bring someone back and channel any violent impulse onto worthy targets even as he chained the soul to the body. He'd been prepared to spend the rest of his life feeding the body before him whatever—whoever—was necessary to keep it going.

Hindsight remained useless to him.

There were only two options: the lover or the living corpse.

Trying to claim both was a childish dream.

—

Vader was wearing the mask he was better known for than his flesh and blood face. His breathing was heavy, mechanical.

"So often our choices are made for us." Vader lifted his hands to his mask. He pulled it off with a hiss of depressurizing air. He revealed the face of someone mortal, a man like any other. "You made yours before this ever began."

His lips were cold against Kylo's mouth.

—

There was no question that the corpse was useless to him without the spirit to guide it. The entire point of raising a wight was to keep the lover.

There was no keeping the lover.

Accepting that meant accepting that after tonight he would be alone.

—

Vader's eyes were red. Black veins stood out against his pale skin. His hands dug into Kylo's shoulders.

"I don't want to return." He bit at Kylo's neck. "I wanted my children to look forward." He pressed against Kylo from chest to hip. "I want you to look forward."

"I don't know how." Kylo had thought he did, had thought that he could kill his past, but that was another lie he'd told himself. He didn't know what to do. He begged, "Grandfather, please: tell me what to do."

Vader smirked with a rueful sort of amusement. "Try to survive."

—

The creature atop Kylo was almost finished forming. It thrashed against Kylo, its gaze empty. Kylo's robes had come open in the struggle.

Kylo opened his mouth. He pulled on the light, sought balance to complete the ritual. He called the spirit home.

—

Vader pulled Kylo down onto a soft mattress in a bright, airy room. He said, "It's nicer here, isn't it?"

His kisses were gentle. His touch was light where he cupped Kylo's cheeks, like he was trying to hold a bird in his hands. Kylo wrapped his legs around Vader's waist as Vader slid slowly, sensuously inside. It didn't hurt. Nothing could hurt him here.

"Nicer." Kylo smiled bitterly against Vader's mouth. "I suppose it is. A painless lie meant to shelter, to appease."

Kylo opened his eyes and embraced the pain.

—

Vader rutted against Kylo, inside him, a contradicting mess of mindless and focused. Vader's body was fully formed. There was a spark of warmth in his eyes. A hint of a smirk played about his lips. Kylo gasped as pleasure and pain intertwined like the light and dark within him, riding that knife's edge into ecstasy.

Kylo had thought this ritual could fix him. Instead, he shattered under its weight.

—

"Was any of that real?" Kylo asked the ghost standing in front of him. Fragments of charred bone lay scattered around his naked body. "Is this real?"

Vader pressed a formless hand against Kylo's stomach. He pressed a weightless kiss to Kylo's temple. He said, "Look forward."

The light of his ghost disappeared, leaving Kylo alone in the dark.

**Author's Note:**

> Dubious consent and consent issues tags for Kylo asking absolutely no one's permission to resurrect their corpse even though the resurrection ritual includes sex (and sex is, in fact, the purpose of the original purpose of the ritual), though zero people also complain about the sex part of the proceedings, only the resurrection part. The fic also contains some non-graphic violence and references to canonical character deaths (Luke, Han, the fact Vader's already dead), as well as Kylo Ren hallucinating/having visions, plus somewhat rough sex with a briefly resurrected corpse (though you're free to think Kylo Ren planned ahead enough to prep and apply lubricant if you want; it's left fairly vague).


End file.
